


The Redeemed

by duckiesinaline



Series: The Emperor's Clothes [3]
Category: Tron (Movies), Tron - All Media Types, Tron: Legacy (2010)
Genre: M/M, Suit Porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-08
Updated: 2012-07-08
Packaged: 2017-11-09 10:07:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/454279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckiesinaline/pseuds/duckiesinaline
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Except that the space was now filled with thin, labored pants and wet, gurgling coughs. Fresh blood continued to bubble up between his fingers, pooling darkly upon the white floor. And as he felt a heart pound in his chest, heard his own pulse hammer in his ears, Clu stared down at a derezzing - no, <em>dying</em> - Tron, and wondered if the user concept of Hell might actually be defined after all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Redeemed

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, it happened! And not only that, a fourth and final installment has already been outlined in loving detail. I've also given the series a more permanent name, now that I have a better idea of where it's going.
> 
> Sorry, a lot more plotty-like stuff happened here than I intended, and the smut's, like, just a fraction of it (which is totally against what I had intended for any of these stories). But I promise that I'll make up for the smaller proportion in the last chapter, The Triumphant. :)
> 
> Just like before, I couldn't leave well enough alone, and also updated [The Abandoned](http://archiveofourown.org/works/409421) with some edits.

The platform was pristine, as well it should be. On the Grid, there was no dust, no grime, no mysterious detritus that congregated and multiplied on every surface and in every vertex. The spartan pad that served as their instantiation point was perfect in detail and utterly immaculate ...

Except that the space was now filled with thin, labored pants and wet, gurgling coughs. Fresh blood continued to bubble up between his fingers, pooling darkly upon the white floor. And as he felt a heart pound in his chest, heard his own pulse hammer in his ears, Clu stared down at a derezzing - no, _dying_ \- Tron, and wondered if the user concept of Hell might actually be defined after all.

* * *

_Clu had thought he knew fury. A frustration so all-encompassing, he had been willing to gamble with the Grid's destruction rather than see it never achieve its true potential._ _But there was something about the user body that made everything_ more _\- the sweat upon his palms, the pressure constricting his lungs, the beat of his pulse in his temples. Instead of a single, simple state definition_ _, there were suddenly dozens of variables being initialized, and all were clamoring for attention in a storm that only seemed to feed itself._

 _These nullbits - these_ assholes _\- were daring to hold the very thing he had asked them to retrieve hostage. Dared to think that just because they had scanned a few man pages that they knew its worth, what it meant to control it._

_Clu let his lip curl and casually unbuttoned his suit jacket. The men before him raised various weapons just as leisurely. Behind him, there was nothing so prosaic as footsteps, but a rumbling growl began to stalk through the dark corners of the warehouse._

_Clu bared his teeth as the men wavered, their attentions divided, and let his hand drop to the gun at his back. "No."_

* * *

Tron was still aware enough to whimper when Clu pulled him up against him.

They had no discs here - _not yet_ \- and even Flynn had preferred to work with back-ups first rather than directly upon the running instance. But Flynn had been a user, first and always, while Clu had not only been otherwise, but could claim ample experience with manipulating programs' naked cores.

In fact, much of it had come from working on this one in particular.

"Clu ... you didn't ... "

"Quiet!" Clu snapped, unnerved equally by the gurgling wheeze which lay beneath Tron's voice and the tremor hidden within his own. "You've caused enough trouble already, don't make this more difficult than it already is."

Tron gave a single, choked laugh before it ended in tortured coughs, and Clu had to steady him with a hand upon the back of the neck even as he pushed the jacket off his shoulders.

He could feel dampness upon his collar where Tron's cheek rested, and his nose was thick with the coppery scent of blood. Had smells always been this sharp upon the Grid? Clu's hands shook as he threw the jacket aside, finding that he could make no definitive comparison.

The waistcoat's fastenings were relatively easy with its broad, bold buttons. Even with slip-wet fingers -

\- _he had made it look so easy, a simple flick of his wrist; and, one by one, they were undone, thin black cotton bared in five measured beats -_

\- they yielded quickly, and Tron made no sound this time as Clu slipped the article off his shoulders. Clu hooked two fingers beneath the tie, raking the knot apart -

\- _the cool silk slithered smooth and lush across his fingers, and he was simultaneously amused and gratified by this curious leash the users had invented, wrapping it about his fist to tug Tron hard against him -_

\- and was gentle only with how the cloth pulled at the throat, because each breath already sounded like it might be the last. And then all that was left was the shirt and all its damnable buttons - 

_\- the tiny, pearlescent things were a tease and reward when he had the patience, but they were only confounding now and Tron's knife was far too tempting as an expedient -_

\- and Clu had no patience or time, so took hold of the two edges, murmured a quick warning, and _yanked_ ...

Tron tensed with a low, pained sound as threads popped and buttons clattered down between them. Clu slipped an arm beneath the cloth, along -

\- _skin flushed and heated -_

\- chilled skin clammy with sweat, and braced the body as he stripped the sodden cloth away.

There were no sharp, cleanly defined circuits; no pixel-ragged blocks of crumbling voxels. Just swaths of red smears and tattered trails leaking from torn flesh, and for a single, miserable moment, Clu felt such revulsion that the gorge rose in a stomach he should not have possessed, not here ... and at that final insult, very nearly did retch.

But Tron's breath abruptly hitched without resuming, and the already weak lean of his body sagged even further, and Clu's arms automatically wrapped around stained ribs so that he could press a hand against the spine, directly between the shoulder blades.

He tried not to think about all the times in which he had done this and all the variations of what had lain beneath his palm - _docked disc, open port, complex circuit patterns, bare and unmarked skin ... the elegant curve of the spine as it bowed and rocked back against him_ \- and reached for Tron's singular essence ...

He could not even feel satisfaction when the system acknowledged him with a smooth, uncontested: _User._

* * *

_It was eight against two, but Tron held the advantage of surprise, and Clu found solid cover while he still possessed the brief immunity his knowledge granted him. But then t_ _hree bodies lay unmoving on the ground and their opposition was down to five, and self preservation finally caught up with greed as bullets began flying closer to his head and center mass than the less essential extremities._

_There was still sweat upon his palms and his heart still hammered in his chest, but the feeling along his circuits - his nerves - was comfortingly familiar; the electric thrill of pure energy filling his limbs until they verged on trembling, pulling his mouth into an eager curl. The gun was a less comfortable weight in his hand, but it was merely another tool towards the same end, and he hesitated no more in its wielding than he had with his own disc upon The Grid. It was the same, stuttering leap of excitement when he emerged from his cover long enough to shoot - saw someone flinch back with a cry, return fire winging close enough to pluck at his collar before he ducked back - because a game wasn't worth playing unless there was a chance of losing; because it wasn't worth the effort of fighting when there wasn't something at stake, even if it was just his pride._

_The uneven staccato of gunfire began to approach; Tron, working his way toward their prize. A strangled cry indicated that another had fallen prey, and there followed an exchange in another language nearly as rapid as the guns that were chattering back and forth. Clu could hear the men's nervousness, the disbelief and fear, and as a shadow dropped into the space between them, bringing with it the scent of hot metal and the growl of distant thunder, Clu drew breath to begin laying out his own terms -_

_" - lice! This is the police - cease fire now!"_

_Tron whirled, twin guns leading, suit jacket flaring wide._

_When he saw the uniforms, he hesitated._

_The guards did not._

* * *

There was no room, because no room was required. There were no winds, no freezing temperatures, no burning sun, not even pests. Only the occasional, cleansing rain - and that had been more welcome than not - and so there were no walls, no roof, no boundaries but for the distant line of the horizon. 

Clu made only what was necessary. A sunken pool, rectilinear, just a little bigger than conventional user bathtubs. A pair of discs, user-white, because when he finally had time to think about back-ups, he also had time to indulge in irony. The occasional tool that could help manage the more repetitive scripts and reports, and his humor was still bitter enough that he briefly contemplated recreating a Jarvis. And when he shed the ruined remnants of his user attire, he did not bother rezzing himself into a gridsuit.

Tron lay reclined against one end of the narrow pool, loose-limbed and eyes closed. Circuits gleamed once more upon his skin - some old, some new - pale from the recent drains, but a clear, unmistakable white. There was just a hint of gridsuit pixellation over the edge of his shoulders; a temporary patch, supporting a dock interface upon his back. 

Clu stepped into the waters and slipped an arm beneath Tron's torso, moving the program - the man, his fellow _user_ \- forward just enough so that he could slide behind. Arranging his own legs outside, cradling the body between them, he carefully aligned a disc against the port and secured it with a twist.

Drawing Tron back against him, ignoring the awkwardness of disc and dock between, he half-closed his eyes against the flickers of the synchronization sequence and waited, gaze locked, unfocused, upon the thatch of dark hair resting upon his shoulder. 

The body felt warm. Beads of water frosted the strands with reflected light upon their ends, overshadowing the steep angle of a cheek. He could feel the slight movements of the rib cage, expanding and contracting; the subliminal pulse and thrum of working life, as if it was itself a system with its own unique frequency of operation.

This shell held few secrets from him anymore. In all its incarnations, he had laid hands directly upon all that could be reached - _bare code, bare skin_ \- and pride might claim that this was the sole reason why Tron still existed at all, before and now. But a shell was still only that, the collection of public interfaces that stood sentinel between the system and the internal methods of a program, and few had either the motivation or the privileges to force their way to the very skeleton of a program's inner state data.

Clu had not hesitated to do exactly that. Sifted through Tron's being as peremptorily as if he had been the creator all along; had, in all actuality, thought he held that very title and privilege. Until he traced the branches to their sources, the ones that tracked priorities and perceptions; that fed into the deterministic loops, that fed in turn into actions. Discovered, to his chagrin, that Rinzler might have existed only in name for long, long cycles.

Discovered, to his dismay, that he could have been in possession of more than just Rinzler all along.

The disc flashed in warning as it entered the boot cycle. Clu exhaled, shaking himself, and settled Tron more securely within the circle of his arms; clasped his own hands together tight just before the sequence finished and the body stiffened -

Tron woke with a hoarse, hacking cough, struggling against the administrator's hold, energy slopping over the pool's edges as he fought for breath and freedom. "Stop!" Clu hissed into an ear and the body obediently froze - but he could feel the fine tremor of tension strung through wire-taut muscles, could see the wild roll of the eyes, and he made an exasperated sound before daring to loosen one hand and press it against Tron's forehead, shading the frantic gaze. "There's no danger. We're safe - _you're_ safe."

Water dripped from his hand down acquiline nose and curve of a cheek, glinting with its own intrinsic power, and he had to suppress a sudden, irrational urge to lap up the threads that were left behind. Instead, Clu tightened his hold, all but enfolding the leaner body to himself, and eventually, the limbs relaxed by slow degrees as memories were sorted, integrated, and Rinzler's trademark purl took an inquiring slant.

"We're on a grid. This system is a fresh install," Clu began, finally letting his hand slide down; ghosting over shoulder and chest, circuits fluttering weakly in its wake as he scanned their integrity. He paused, palm hovering over a particularly dense nexus of traces - odd, asymetrical, _unnatural_ \- and the rumble stuttered as a hand curled around his wrist, sudden and fierce.

He may be able to read Tron's coding down to the byte, but this odd hybrid form resisted the usual repair methods. It kept trying to impose its own order - deadening what should have been pliant flesh; ugly, inactive lines that acted only as stitch and gap-filler - and in the interests of time, he had finally compromised with a hard knot of patches that sealed the damage and yet bridged the more vital energy flows. 

Clu pressed his hand against it now, monitoring the body's flinch and tension; listened intently to the stutter of breath, trying to gauge how much performance had been lost. "Does it still hurt?" he murmured as the grip upon his wrist grew rigid.

There came a small, tight shake of the head. And while Clu judged it not to be a lie, precisely, there was still more parsing involved than he would have ordinarily tolerated. "I should let you keep it that way as a lesson," he snorted against the damp nape, breathing in the electric scent of power and that something uniquely Tron that had been brought back from the user world. 

The man stirred when the dock dissolved; head tilting with a suspicious sound when the now-quiescent disc was laid aside. But it wasn't until Clu pressed against him, front to back, and splayed fingers across the blemish to re-test its integration with healthier sectors nearby that Tron finally spoke.

"It doesn't matter."

And Clu stilled. _It doesn't matter._ The dizzying swell of red-limned errors as system after system cascaded into chaos ... the race to isolate and suspend before all was lost to irrecoverable failures ... the painstaking process of debugging something that should have been as familiar and predictable as his own code and which, instead, had nearly been the farthest from his expectations as could be ... all dismissed. 

He could feel the twist of fury and desperation all over again, the choking rush of the Grid's heat and lightning amidst the visceral thump of blood through head and heart, and snarled, "You _crashed!_ "

Tron twisted within his grip, water shivering, breath escaping in a strangled syllable as Clu's fingers dug in. The patches sparked and crackled beneath the strain, and Clu pressed against the curve of the man's spine as Tron curled sharply around the hurt. "You nearly _died_ ," Clu spat, feeling just as breathless, just as brittle; imagined that the cold, hard lump in his middle was what Tron must feel with that clumsy patch in his core, and wondered how the man could stand it. "You paused and nearly _died_ for it! Do you feel this? _This_ was the most I could do in the time I had, this - this imperfect _thing_!"

Tron sucked air sharply through his teeth. Said, in a voice still hoarse and choked from memory, "They were security - "

_"You're not security anymore!"_

Tron was frozen. Locked.

Clu rested his chin within the crook of shoulder and neck, filling the perfect hollow; pressed his cheek to Tron's and grated, "Next time, you shoot. Next time, you shoot - or I will shoot you myself, and save us both the trouble."

* * *

_Two more bodies were added to the count, but this time, they wore uniforms of blue._

_Even gasping and leaning half-against Clu, Tron still clung to his weapons. Jaw clenched to aching, Clu held his own aim steady where the other man's trembled, and stared unblinkingly at the handful of firearms pointed right back at them._

_" - took it through the lung. Your friend's not long for this world -_ "

 _He didn't need to know anything about user anatomy to feel - to_ hear _\- the frightening truth of the words._

 _" - chance to redeem yourself. You know the replication procedures. Work the laser and -_ "

_\- and the whole world suddenly seemed to come into focus, Grid-sharp. He knew nothing of user anatomy, but a program's? Clu's gaze slipped past the half-circle of thieves, toward a tarp-covered shape with cables thick as his wrist running beneath._

_There would be no network connections. He would have to build everything from scratch. There would, no doubt, be some rudimentary sysadmin monitoring from the outside, but they would almost certainly not be of the calibre of a Flynn or a Bradley ..._

_Tron dragged in another laborious breath and slumped fully against him._ _Clu leaned back, taking the extra weight, and let the pistol swing gently by its trigger guard._ _"Deal."_

* * *

Clu nosed the delicate whorls of the ear when the silence and stillness stretched too long; teased a fingertip around the shell of the other. He more sensed than felt the minute shiver - the water's surface shimmering in reaction - and tried to draw out Tron's distraction even further with a sharp nip at the tender skin beneath the lobe.

"Not security ... then what am I?" Tron rasped, twitching as Clu sealed his lips over the new heat he had made. 

_Mine_ , would have been the automatic response, once upon a time. Security, program, Rinzler, _predictable_ ... but Tron was none of that, not now. The skin will stain beneath Clu's lips, blood already pooling beneath the thin mask; dark and warm and vivid. Programs that bruised, that bled, that breathed ... what did that make Tron? What did that make either of them, now? 

The circuits had been easy to raise, as if they were no more than bruises themselves - a coaxing touch, a reminder, and they had bloomed across the skin, florid and familiar. The body remembered them, just like it remembered how to flush in violet lines - with the brush of knuckles across trace and juncture, with the scrape of nails over sensitive skin - and hardened to attention in that user-only way in spite of the distinctly un-user input.

"Shall we find out?" Clu rumbled, felt an answering rumble in the chest cradled before his, let his hands wander with clear purpose as the left traced the wing of a hipbone to the delicate seam between thigh and groin, and the right followed the clearly lit path of a circuit line as it slanted across the belly's toned muscles.

Tron made a disapproving sound even as he twitched, leg automatically falling open, tense. Clu took an earlobe delicately between his teeth, tugged gently even as his thumb rubbed in slow circles just above the groin; whispered through the arch of the body, the sharp inhalation, "Tron, Tron ... I took you apart, put you back together ... but there's always something new, something unexpected ... "

Water surged, splashed, as the body suddenly twisted within his grasp. His fingers raked across wet-slippery skin, found uncertain purchase only, and Clu blinked at the patter of water upon his cheek. 

Tron hovered over him, a hand braced upon the edge behind Clu's head, body arched and mantled. In the diffuse light of the grid, there were no shadows, but still it seemed as if the light thinned between them, perspective tunneled. Clu felt his heart pound, sudden and pronounced, as he reached up to curl his fingers beneath Tron's chin, stroking his thumb over the harsh, thin line of the mouth before letting it dimple the lower lip. "Why was Flynn so fascinated by the isos when there was you?"

The growl swelled like the tide of the sea, warning, and Clu smirked wide in answer. His thumb pressed, firm and insistent, until the lips finally yielded, engulfing it in wet and heat. "One more time," he rasped, stomach abruptly tight, leaning up to drag his own tongue across the tantalizing light pooled in Tron's collarbone ... felt the body shudder against him. "Let me take you apart one more time."

He knew that consent would be given, but not that it would come with the harsh rasp of teeth across the pad of his thumb, making his toes curl and scrape at the pool's smooth bottom. Knew that the gaze would narrow, lashes sweeping down, but not that the calculating gaze would come with such a sly, knowing gleam. Predicted the stuttering purl when he mouthed a junction upon the shoulder, even the plaintive whine when he sucked upon it to raise a bruise beneath an already purpling node, but found himself groaning in turn when an arm looped unexpectedly behind his waist and Tron ground against him; light and sensations flaring as they surged to full hardness against each other.

Tron's head tipped back and Clu nipped at the pulse point revealed so carelessly; breathed in the heady scent of electricity and arousal, felt the man's groan vibrate against his lips. He lapped at the trails of water highlighting all the shadows between the muscle, latched upon a taut nipple, and had to dig his fingers into the hips cradled between them as they jerked. A tug upon his hair, the pain small but brilliant, and suddenly he couldn't wait anymore; stroked one hand down the elegant curve of the spine, the ass, and dug fingers appreciatively into the firm swell. When Tron bucked, he pressed eagerly up into the motion, panting against the intricate tracery of light over the man's sternum.

The water felt cool, now, by comparison. Either an unwanted distraction or a welcome balm against the heat, Clu's opinion reversed itself with each lap and swirl of hidden currents. The liquid both masked and sensitized, made it easy to forget weight and mass, and he found himself clinging all the harder to the body before him, just to remind himself of its solidity. Tron twitched when a finger grazed his entrance, made a sound that Clu usually had to work much harder for, and emboldened, he slid the entire length inside without any more preamble than a needy roll of his hips.

Even thin as it was, the water eased the way. From Tron's reaction, it might have done a little more than that as the man arched between Clu's knees, eyes shaded till they were gray crescents, muscles bunching across arms and shoulders and chest while the stomach trembled with shallow pants. He curled his finger gently inside, straightened it, stroked; soon added a second finger and let them rest a long moment before scissoring them wide ... 

Clu stared, dry-mouthed and enthralled; categorizing all the tiny flickers that stirred the normally stoic facade. His memory painted a flush across the monochrome cheeks, the lips, and suddenly, he ached to see the man again in true light, unwilling to miss even that small detail - 

An ugly, alien anxiety suddenly yawned inside him. Their definitions had changed - may be changing even now - and it seemed that he was no better a predictor of his _own_ reactions than he was of Tron's. It felt as if his very core was eroding into meaningless symbols; cryptic, indecipherable -

"Is it frightening?"

Clu froze, abruptly aware that he was gasping, dizzy from more than just the heady sensations pooling low within his body. Eyes swimming up from the firefly flickers skating across the man's skin, he met a slate-blue gaze gone flat with weariness and understanding, and felt inexplicably trapped. "What - "

"Remaking yourself. Having yourself remade."

His circuits - his skin - seemed to flush alternately hot and cold. There was outrage, but it felt thin and distant; a bare reflex only. Resentment was easier to grasp, and he clutched at it with both hands as he croaked, "Going to tell me that it's easy? That it's my turn, my just desserts, my - "

"It's never easy." Clu sputtered, stopped; what further user metaphors he had intended to wield slipping coyly from his grasp. "It's never easy." Softer, as if the words would crack upon his skin, pressed there with a brush of lips; like an apology. Like pity. And it made Clu want to break him all over again, except he didn't, and it was as much agony to be left suspended in the decision loop as to grasp all that had led him to this ...

A light touch upon his knee, dragging slowly down the inside of his thigh, and it would have been embarrassing how quickly he was distracted if there hadn't been clear purpose behind it. His cock twitched to full stiffness before the touch even circled close, and he couldn't help the jerk of his hips as the fingers' path curved down and past until they rested lightly against the entrance to his body.

"I'm still here."

And maybe he was learning to read the non-user way, because it didn't take any extrapolation at all to understand that Tron was still here because he chose to be. That he had the werewithal to leave, now, and still chose this. And maybe Clu finally knew freedom also, knowing that he had nothing left to hold the man, and yet Tron was still here, will always be, and he didn't need to brood and plot and threaten anymore to keep what he wanted - 

Lips upon his own. Grazing, undemanding, until Clu reached up to hold him still so that he may stroke inside. And then it was suddenly as if they wished to devour each other whole, an inelegant clash of teeth and tongue, and he almost, almost missed it when pressure gave way to the slender, slick intrusion of a finger sliding into his body.

His lip throbbed when he did not turn as expected and teeth nipped too sharply. Tron pulled back, startled and pensive, but did no more than that - waiting for his prompt. Clu remembered to breathe only when his head began to throb, rolled his tongue absently across the electric tang beading upon his lip, flexed experimentally against the trespasser ... and saw Tron's eyes blacken, fixed upon his tongue's motion. Heard the man's growl swell and stutter. Imagined that half-remembered flush deepening and spreading, and felt as if he had finally found purchase again as he invited, "So, show me what you've got."

Tron dove in, nearly cracked their noses together with his haste, sucked sharply enough upon that small cut that Clu arched, unthinkingly driving the man's touch deeper. He had to fight the urge to reach deeper than the skin, dug his fingers into back and flank against the temptation, and growled impatience at the man in spite of his gritted teeth.

Two fingers were a discomfort, the third a noticeable burn. The water crept in with each stroke, strange and uncomfortable, until the burn subsided enough to feel its prickle - like a hum, like the inner workings of Tron's voice, thrumming through his chest. It seemed to sap the strength from his limbs even as it made his groin tighten, and he barely registered his own reaction when the fingers pulled away - a whine, an empty rock of his hips - only to be replaced with something thicker.

Tron did not hesitate, for which Clu was distantly grateful. He was slow and took care, but did not bother waiting for further promptings - simply pushed in with a smooth, steady force, until his hips were tucked flush against Clu's, foreheads touching, breaths shared.

Tron shifted, and suddenly Clu was all too conscious of the heat of the body pressed against him. The tuck of the man's thighs beneath his, the lean waist interposed between, the curve of the hips against his ass and what was _inside_... he felt too full, aching, hyperaware of all the parts of himself that he had never given a single thought to before. He instinctively pushed against the pressure and Tron groaned, planted a sloppy kiss against the corner of his mouth, shifted back to push in again -

Clu hissed at the first thrust, wondered how Tron had suffered through the same ordeal, time and time again. Ground his teeth at the second, swearing that in this as well, he would not prove himself less able than the other man. And finally, on the third, received the first inkling of what always had the man writhing beneath him when something seemed to spark straight up his spine ... and with a satisfied sound, Tron shifted, pulled back, and drove full force inside him.

Clu could hear his own voice ringing in his ears.

His legs tightened around the body between them, just as Tron's had so many times before. He understood now, what made the man arch so greedily into the snap of the hips. Though the ache was still there, it was easily ignored, and when he tightened at another flash of sensation and the man whimpered as if he were the one being pierced instead -

Clu clamped his teeth upon the shoulder before him. Scraped his nails across the nodes that rested just above the crest of the buttocks. Stifled a moan when the body jerked hard against him, and reached down to circle that entrance he had already breached before, slipping two fingers in with nary any resistance at all ...

He felt Tron's groan straight through his chest, the rumble shivering through his ribcage as if to take up a new residence within. Felt as if everything was being pulled taut until they hovered, trembling, right before their snapping points. Didn't know, yet, whether he wanted to wait there for a while more - _forever_ \- or reach for the greater pleasure of orgasm, but with the inevitable conclusion that would follow ... and had the matter taken right out of his hands when a touch curled around his leaking cock and gave it two firm tugs.

He was reminded, vividly, that release upon the grid was accompanied by bright lights of a very literal nature.

When conscious thoughts finally staggered back online, he had to blink dazzled eyes, even though they had been closed. The water had yet to still completely, and light chased more than just the ripples that still rebounded within the small pool. In the remaining glow, they were made almost luminous ...

"How much of you did Alan_1 make?" Clu barely registered the hoarse rasp as his own, and the dark head slumped against his shoulder tilted lethargically without rising. Clu curved a heavy hand beneath the man's arm and rested it upon the back of the neck; felt numb and weightless, only the water's buoyancy keeping their tangle from becoming uncomfortable. "How much of you remains him?"

He retrieved his last glimpse of the man - grayed hair, shoulders hunched, face lined, _old_ \- and wondered how Alan had given so much more to Tron without ever knowing him while Clu had gained so little from his own user. Thought about Flynn and all his obsessions, the voices that he had never listened to, the user's absolute _certainty_ in his calling ...

_Do this ... prove yourselves to me ..._

" ... and I will never betray you," the words tumbled out, acrid with regret, as he finally knew himself.

Finally, he had caught up with Tron. Finally, they were equals.

* * *

Each tiny disc slipped precisely through its matching button-hole, slowly sealing belly, breast, and throat from sight.

Cloth rustled as tails were tucked neatly away, the zipper a brief, quiet accent against the general system hum.

The belt snapped shut, cinched just above the angular hips, and the waistcoat came next - snugging the tailored shirt close, stretching already long, lean lines, until Clu's fingers itched to scrape along them.

The tie was knotted with economical precision, the little scrap of satin and silk flicking up, over, under, through ... Clu rose from his seat as the triangle was nudged up into the pale hollow of the throat, resisted the urge to lick into that shadowed space, and reached out himself to affix the trademark pin in place.

Tron stared after him as he ran his thumb over the four, tiny squares, and finally pulled himself away because they were but a chilly copy of the live, electric ones hidden just beneath. Tron's eyes did not leave him as shoulder harness and jacket were shrugged into place, buttoned, smoothed ...

Clu breathed deep when the gloves were drawn on, the last piece, long fingers spreading as the pliant leather was stretched and fitted with sharp, neat tugs at the wrists. And when Tron stood ready once more, straight and tall, unbowed and just as finely honed as ever ... Clu threaded his fingers behind the man's nape and leaned in.

The kiss was slow, languid. Tron had paused at first, surprised and perplexed, but with the second coaxing lick at the seam between his lips, the man finally let them part. Clu immediately stroked inside, tasted the heat and edges and the soft, yielding caress; yielded in turn to the long, lingering strokes and let the experience stretch, unhurried. Sucked gently upon the lip and nipped it triumphantly when he felt the chest now pressed against him hitch, breath stuttering, and rubbed the pad of his naked thumb in promise over the skin just behind Tron's ear.

He pulled back to find storm-blue eyes fixed with unblinking intensity upon him. Had to turn away from the temptation to peel all those layers off again, and straightened his own - tie, collar, waistcoat; all in his own colors. The jacket was left open and the gloves folded neatly over their pocket, but he was now otherwise a mirror of the other. When Tron looked pointedly once more at his choice of attire, he simply smirked. 

There were so many user phrases that would prove interesting to test. Such as 'the clothes make the man', and just how much hell one could give to another.

"Shall we?"


End file.
